Flap over mistaken embalming still simmering in Colorado

UPI News Service, 07/23/2013

A Colorado coroner said this week one of her employees was fired for sending the wrong body to a funeral home to be embalmed.

ADVERTISEMENT

Adams County Coroner Monica Broncucia-Jordan said the morgue worker disregarded several official procedures and shipped the body of a man whose family wanted it left in its natural state out to be embalmed.

"The body should never have been released in the first place and had it not been released the embalming would not have occurred," Broncucia-Jordan told KCNC-TV in Denver.

The incident occurred last summer but came to light only recently in court documents filed by the decedent's family. Trish Martinez told KCNC they had wanted the body of her late husband, 36-year-old Juan Garcia, left in its natural state so their family could take one last look at him before he was cremated.

"Their body is still part of your family, you know?" Martinez said. "They should be more careful and more secure in what they are doing."

KCNC said Adams County picked up the embalming and cremation tab, but Martinez is considering further legal action.